WWII in Yosemite: What happened to the Ahwahnee Hotel?

Alyssa Saldivar
·1 min read
15

YOSEMITE, Calif. (KGPE/KSEE) – During World War II, Yosemite National Park officials say the Awahnee Hotel was a place for wounded sailors of the war and was a naval hospital in 1941.

The Yosemite National Park states Captain Reynolds Hayden commanded the Navy Hospital in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Navy executed their surprise attack. 20 months later, he would find himself far across the Pacific, in Yosemite of all places, to run a new facility for the wounded sailors of the war that had followed that infamous day.

The US Navy leased The Awahnee Hotel from 1943 to 1945 as a “Special” naval hospital, an arrangement being made possible by the nation’s need for expanded medical facilities timed with a substantial drop in tourism.

However, according to many patients, the Stone Valley walls proved to be isolating more than inspiring.

Captain Reynolds Hayden worked hard with the local community to expand recreational facilities for patients and converted the hotel into a successful, holistic treatment center by the end of its commission, according to Yosemite National Park.

The Wars demand much from the community as a cost worth remembering, as both an homage to the past and a lesson for the future.

Since Dec. 7, 1941, Yosemite National Park says they are proud to be a part of the great American context and what healing it could provide during the war, and as the community from that history continues to the present day, they look forward to what more healing the park can provide next.

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